coffee table back,” he said as he carried the mattress past her.
Or to stay warm she could move the bed into the great room, she thought, and almost laughed at his practical solution to the problem. She dragged the coffee table to the side, shoved the couch back a couple of feet. He positioned the mattress on the floor in front of the fireplace, and she retrieved the pillows from where he’d left them in the bedroom. When she returned he’d repositioned the couch so it was flush with the mattress. To lean back against, she thought, recognizing immediately what he was doing.
They both removed their boots and sat down on the mattress with their backs against the couch, using the pillows for support. Either it was surprisingly comfortable, or just being with him made everything feel better. He put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest where she could feel the strong, steady beat of his heart.
She was filled with wonder that she felt so easy with him. When she’d been dating Adam, she’d been uncertain and self-conscious for months, wondering if she was doing or saying things that would turn him off. With Ben, the excitement and sheer pleasure of touching him, and being touched by him, seemed to override her insecurities. Once he’d kissed her, things had changed. It wasn’t just that his arousal had been so evident, but that the power of his hunger had been, too. He wanted her, the woman, but he also wanted her, the person, and that made all the difference in the world.
He rubbed his chin against her hair. “I’ve never been married.”
Interesting. His masculinity was such a magnet to women, she was surprised he was a bachelor. She hadn’t thought he’d always been such a loner, but perhaps he had been. She tilted her head against his shoulder to look up at him, to marvel at the way the firelight played across the hard planes of his face. “Why not? Carol doesn’t call you Hot Buns for no reason.”
He made a sound that was half snort, half laugh, and it warmed her all the way through. “I thought I was Stud Muffin.”
“She has a whole list of names. I think she has some cougar in her.”
“Yeah, I should probably check for claw marks.” A flicker of amusement crossed his face, then was gone. “I was in the military—I was a Marine, and I deployed overseas on several tours. When I was stateside things just never worked out. A lot of women like dating the uniform, but the reality of having a relationship with someone who’s on the other side of the world half the time—it’s more than they wanted to deal with. I didn’t mind. There wasn’t anyone I particularly cared about.”
“What about after you left the military?”
He didn’t move, but she felt the inner withdrawal and knew she’d bumped against his emotional wall. “No one?” she prompted, not willing to let him stall with his thoughts.
“No.” A few beats later he glanced at her. “At all.” He cleared his throat. “I should probably apologize in advance, because—I’d intended to take some pressure off before we got in bed together, but things happened and I don’t want to wait any longer.”
She’d been so focused on keeping him talking that it took a few seconds for his meaning to sink in. Her reaction pinged in several directions at once: astonishment, laughter, profound gratitude that he’d even thought of such a thing. Warmth flooded her and she turned into him, lifting her arm to wrap it around his neck and hug him closer. “I—well. It’s been a while for me, too. Since my divorce, almost five years ago.”
She felt him tilt his head to look down at her. “Why’d you dump him?”
“I didn’t,” she admitted, kind of amazed that he’d immediately come to the opposite conclusion. “He dumped me.”
He drew back, frowned at her. “What is he, brain-damaged?”
Part of her wanted to put the most flattering spin on it, say that she and Adam had wanted different things—which they had—but the past couple of days had been kind of a trial by fire, and if Ben wanted to leave because she wasn’t what he wanted then better she learned that now. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since the divorce was final so he might be by now, but no, when we divorced he had full brain function.